


Revelations

by terminus



Category: Ace Combat
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 09:35:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terminus/pseuds/terminus
Summary: A demon comes for Pixy in Waldreich.





	Revelations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [idc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idc/gifts).



He’s half-mad from the pain by the time he’s dragged his broken body far enough for the townsfolk to find.

Of course, Pixy hadn’t wanted to be found. He had pulled himself through Ground Zero not as a man in want of saving, but as a dog looking to lie down and die. He should have died, simply from the gravity of his wounds and the blood that had painted his path from Avalon as he’d crawled away. He should have died, simply because he was a sinner and it was his due.

From the sky, all he’d seen for miles was a wasteland: charred dirt and the husks of broken buildings, jutting up from the rubble like tombstones. Enough bones littering the landscape that one more set would have hardly mattered. A good place as any to put your boots up and your head down.

He doesn’t die, in the end, but that’s just providence. It’s not for a lack of trying.

* * *

The water’s foul in Waldreich. It keeps him on the cusp of living, sure, but it doesn’t do much in the way of making him comfortable. The pain ebbs and flows like a stream, but the fever stays, constant and hot and haunting. His waking hours seem few and far between, and he doesn’t feel as if he inhabits even them, that he’s always two steps back and watching the body sprawled on the bed, chin tipped towards the swoop of the canvas roof.

It’s not so bad. They tell him more than once that he had to be cut from his fatigues, that he almost lost his leg, just to make sure it sticks. There is always a different person at his bedside to feed him and dab the sweat from his eyes. He’s always been good with faces, but he doesn’t learn a single one of any of them. After a while, he tries to focus on their hands, instead. Two of them wear wedding bands, smooth metal wrapped around dainty, slim fingers. One’s missing a pinky. One’s got worker’s callouses that catch on his nape and make him hiss through his teeth. He gets a little farther along with knowing them from that.

If they talk about Avalon, it’s not where Pixy can hear them. That’s not so bad, either. He’d accepted that no one would thank him for that, that history probably wouldn’t pen him as righteous. He’d just banked on not having to see those consequences for himself.

He’d made a hasty peace with himself when Cipher had shot the Morgan down. Didn’t mind throwing himself on the Alliance’s sword as a martyr all that much if it meant Cipher’s hand was wrapped around the hilt. With the two of them in the sky, it had felt like reaching a forewarned conclusion. It had felt a little like coming home.

Pixy’s got a lot of time to think about Cipher, now.

Never let lack of time stop him from thinking about Cipher, if he can be honest with himself. Pixy’d been in the game long enough to have a good eye for talent, and even with his feet planted firmly on the ground, the kid had a draw. Dark hair, slim shoulders, big hands. Wonky smile that showed a few too many teeth. A reputation for excellence that seemed to dwarf him in actuality. He’d been all too happy to let Cipher pull him in. 

Felt good to be right, too. In the sky, Cipher just stopped being human and became something else entirely. _Ustio’s demon_ , they had started to call him. _Demon Lord of The Round Table_. Pixy always thought they just needed to look a little higher to find the truth: Cipher wasn’t hell-sent.

But then, nobody had come to know Cipher like he had. Since Crossbow, it had been clear that they were two sides of the same coin -- he just hadn’t known what that truly meant, not until it was too late.

So, yeah. He’s got a lot of time to think. A lot of time to regret some things, too, when it’s dark and he’s hurting and too worn down to push the guilt out.

Should’ve seen the war for what he’d called it and bailed out long before Hoffnung. Should’ve gone turncoat and shot Cipher down over the mountains en route to Sudentor before the kid had got a read on him and wised up.

Should’ve done a lot of things.

* * *

He turns Cipher over and over in his head so much that the kid bleeds over, spills into his sleep. The Cipher he dreams about isn’t the same man he thinks about, the clay in his memories that Pixy can get his palms around and shape to his liking. Cipher, unbound, is a force Pixy can’t reckon with, a beast of burden that comes storming through to throw Pixy back to wakefulness, heart half out of his chest, sheets twisted around his good leg.

He dreams of Valais, most nights. There was a lot of could-have-beens that he’d never laid to rest, back on that base. Lot of moments with Cipher that could have been something else, if only he’d done-- _something_.

Sometimes it’s not Valais, but Avalon, deep in the dam, and Cipher holds him against the brickwork by the shoulders until he wakes up, breath snared deep in his throat, eyes watering.

Sometimes, Cipher forgives him. That’s the one that keeps him up of a night, back flat on the mattress, teeth clenched until his jaw creaks in protest. Sometimes it’s in Valais, in the dark, in his bunk, their faces an inch apart, Cipher breathing the pardon out against Pixy’s mouth. Sometimes it’s in Avalon, and Cipher bites it out against his throat. Always, it’s Cipher forgiving him, and always, it’s Pixy waking up heavier and heavier, burdened with wondering what it means.

* * *

There’s one night, where the fever’s bad, and he can’t tell if he’s dreaming with his eyes open, or--

Cipher’s in the tent.

He manages to get his elbows propped underneath him before a palm slams into his breastbone, shoving him back. God, but he’s so solid, fingers sprawling out, dimpling Pixy’s bare skin. This is new. Conjuring Cipher from the recesses of his unconscious mind had always been safe, in a way -- no matter the motions of punishment and penance he performed of a night, he could always come out of it and know that it wasn’t real.

Cipher leans forward, the heat of his hand a brand, and Pixy’s tongue clicks in his dry mouth.

“Buddy,” he starts, voice breaking off with a cringe at how easily the endearment comes out, how wrong it is of him to say.

Even in the dark, he can see the narrow gleam of Cipher’s eyes as they settle on his. Sees his lips part and the way his tongue twitches behind his teeth before he speaks. “Still alive?”

“Stole my line,” Pixy rasps.

Cipher’s barked laugh claps through the quiet like a physical blow. Pixy feels the tension on his chest go slack, and he swings after Cipher’s momentum, catching his arm before he can slip away somewhere unreachable, before Pixy has to wake up.

“God,” Pixy says. Cipher’s pulse is juddering against his grip, and he feels so alive that Pixy must be dying. Why else would he envision Cipher here, bent over his bed like a priest called to perform final rites?

The mattress dips, Cipher’s knee bracing between Pixy’s parted legs as he settles into a kneel. Pixy’s breath rattles in his chest, his thumb rubbing nervous circles into the bony jut of Cipher’s wrist, still in the vice of his fist.

_C’mon_ , Pixy thinks, wildly. _C’mon_. He doesn’t even know what he’s asking for, but Cipher must, because he acquiesces, straddling Pixy’s thigh -- the good one -- with a stutter-stall of his hips. He twists out of Pixy’s grip and pins both his hands against the bedspread in the same water-smooth motion, lacing their fingers together in afterthought. Pixy tries to suck in another breath, and it lodges in his throat with a groan.

God, but this is new. Cipher holding him down, the line of his dick a heady pressure against the seam of his hip -- Pixy didn’t think he could sink any lower. Turns out his subconscious has a few more choice ideas stashed away to lay him out like the mongrel he is.

“Hah,” Pixy huffs out, then, “fuck,” turning his face into his pillow.

“Shut up,” Cipher hisses. There’s not a lick of threat or demand in it, but Pixy obeys, teeth clicking together, wet, as he closes his mouth. A breath whistles out of his nose as Cipher palms at him, fingernails catching around the outline of his cock, swollen with blood and pinned to his belly. It takes him too long to get his hand down his waistband. Takes him longer still to make a fist around his cock.

But, God, when he does--

“Kid,” Pixy heaves out as Cipher pinches his foreskin between his thumb and forefinger. It’s rough enough to ache, soft enough not to wound. 

It’s just how he likes it. It’s not what he deserves.

Cipher claps his hand over Pixy’s mouth as he starts stroking him, fist wound too tight, palm too dry. He doesn’t move to pin Pixy’s wrists again, holds him down with nothing but his hand on his dick and the glint of his stare in the dark. He knows Pixy isn’t going to move, knows Pixy is just going to lie there and take what he’s given.

And fuck if Pixy doesn’t know it, too.

* * *

Come morning, his minder hisses with sympathy at the mottle of crescent cuts to his cheeks and jaw, at the ropes of bruising cuffing his wrists.

“Hell of a bad dream,” Pixy says, all smiles.


End file.
